In September-November 2005 the U.S. traditionalist periodical “The Remnant” published a five-part critique of sedevacantism by
Christopher A. Ferrara entitled “A Challenge to the Sedevacantist Enterprise.”

Mr. Ferrara, a lawyer by profession, was
long on aggressive rhetoric, but short on citing theological works to back up
his claims — though checking out his sparse references didn’t inspire much
confidence either.[1]

Mr. Ferrara argued, moreover, that the New
Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) is not evil[2]and that Vatican II taught no false
doctrines.[3]
The average traditionalist, of course, believes just the opposite.

Since Mr. Ferrara had explicitly criticized many of
my own writings, the Editor of “The Remnant,” Michael Matt, graciously invited
me to write a response. Because the editorial position of “The Remnant” has
generally been anti-sedevacantist, however, Mr. Matt asked me to try to limit
my response to 3000 words — a condition I regarded as entirely understandable.

I decided to take the opportunity to present
to “Remnant” readers a short, affirmative case for sedevacantism. In the
version of the article that appears below, I have removed references to my
debate with Mr. Ferrara in order to give it a broader appeal, moved some
material from the footnotes to the main text, and added a few explanatory
phrases.

TRADITIONALISTS (apart from Indult types) usually
agree on two general points:

(1) The New Mass (as well as much
post-Vatican II legislation) is evil and harmful to the faith.

(2) The teachings of Vatican II and the
post-Vatican II hierarchy (on ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, the
Church, etc.) often contradict pre-Vatican II teachings, and at least fall
under the heading of “doctrinal error” — a general term for “alldoctrine
at variance with the truths of the faith.”[4]

Where we differ is on how to reconcile (a)
rejecting these evils and errors, with (b) pre-Vatican II teaching on papal
authority and the indefectibility of the Church.

On one hand, the Society of St. Pius X
(SSPX), together with The Remnant, Catholic Family News and many others,
maintain that Catholics may “recognize” a pope and simultaneously “resist” his
bad laws and doctrinal errors. There is no convenient label for this position,
so here I will call it “R&R,” as in “recognize-and-resist.”

Sedevacantists, on the other hand, maintain
that these evil laws and doctrinal errors indicate that the post-Vatican II
popes at some point lost their authority by becoming heretics, and hence were
not true popes at all.[5]

These issues are widely and heatedly debated
among traditionalists. But the principles of dogmatic theology and canon law
are the only legitimate standards for assessing and choosing between the two
conflicting positions.

Using these criteria, I will make a very
brief and (I hope) easily understood case for sedevacantism. I will examine two
issues:

(I) How the infallibility of the Church in
her universal laws and universal ordinary magisterium renders R&R
untenable.

(II) Heresy in general, and the heresy of
the post-Conciliar popes concerning the unity of the Church in particular.

I. RECOGNIZE
AND RESIST?

In my experience, the average layman who
adheres to R&R does so based on the notion that Catholics are really bound
only by “ex cathedra” pronouncements, that neither the New Mass nor the Vatican
II errors fall under this heading, and that Catholics are therefore free to
reject and denounce these things as non-Catholic, as well as to “resist” the
various popes who promulgated them.

R&R apologists have offered more refined
variations of the foregoing, but their arguments fail for the following
reasons:

A. The authority of the Church cannot
promulgate an evil rite of Mass. As I
have demonstrated elsewhere,[6]
Catholic theologians teach that the Church’s infallibility extends to universal
disciplinary laws — she “can never sanction a universal law which would be at
odds with faith or morality or would be by its very nature conducive to the
injury of souls.”[7]

Based on the following anathema of the
Council of Trent, moreover, theologians explicitly extend this infallibility to
the Church’s laws governing the celebration of Mass:

“If anyone says that the ceremonies,
vestments and outward signs, which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration
of Masses, are incentives to impiety rather than the service of piety: let him
be anathema.”[8]

But, as every traditionalist knows, Paul
VI’s New Mass (even in Latin) is one big fat irritabulum impietatis —
“incentive to impiety.”

You cannot reconcile the evil of this Mass
with the notion that the man who promulgated it was a true pope, possessing
supreme legislative authority from Jesus Christ.[9]

B. Catholics must adhere to the teachings of the
universal ordinary magisterium (pope and bishops together) and to the Holy
See’s doctrinal decisions. In the
Syllabus of Errors Pius IX condemned the proposition that Catholics are
obliged to believe only those things proposed by the Church’s infallible
judgment as dogmas of the faith.[10]
Catholics must also adhere to:

(1) Teachings
of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium.[11]
One way this magisterium is exercised is “by the express teaching habitually
imparted, outside of formal definitions, by the pope and the body of bishops
dispersed throughout the world.”[12]

By this standard, for instance, the
1994-1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church contains “universal ordinary
magisterium” for those who recognize John Paul II as a true pope. He explicitly
declared the Catechism “a sure norm for teaching the faith,” “a sure and
authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine… to assist in the
writing of new local catechisms… while carefully preserving the unity of faith
and fidelity to Catholic doctrine.”[13]

Yet traditionalists who read SSPX
publications, The Remnant, Catholic Family News, etc. know that
the Catechism is filled with doctrinal error, because it promotes the
Vatican II teachings on religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the Church,
etc.

(2) Doctrinal
Decrees of the Holy See.[14]
These include doctrinal statements published by the Holy Office with the pope’s
approval, as well as papal encyclicals. Catholics must give all
authentically-approved papal doctrinal decrees “internal mental and religious
assent,” given “out of reverence due to God, who governs through the sacred
hierarchical authority of the Church.”[15]

Those traditionalists who recognized John
Paul II as a true pope, therefore, would be required to give internal mental
and religious assent to post-Vatican II pronouncements such as the Declaration Dominus
Jesus, which “The Sovereign Pontiff… with sure knowledge and by his
apostolic authority, ratified and confirmed.”[16]

Here too, publications
put out by the R&R camp have pointed out that this document and others like
it contain doctrinal errors about the Church, salvation, etc.

But again, one cannot reconcile the
existence of doctrinal errors found in either source (presumed universal
ordinary magisterium or papal doctrinal decrees) to the notion that a true pope
and Catholic bishops, retaining teaching authority from Jesus Christ and the
assistance of the Holy Ghost, imposed doctrinal error on the universal Church.

C. Theologians do not support public “resistance” to
a true pope’s laws and doctrine. Faced
with the foregoing, the R&R camp has endlessly — and I mean endlessly —
recycled a set of quotes from various theologians that supposedly support
public “resistance” to a pope’s evil laws and false doctrines.[17]
The quotes fall into two groups:

(1) Commentaries on Paul’s Resistance to Peter.(Gal 2:11-14) Here St. Paul publicly rebuked St.
Peter for dissimulating about observing the Old Testament dietary laws: “I
withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.”

St. Thomas[18] and
others[19]
observe that St. Paul gave an example of how subjects should give fraternal
correction to their prelates “even publicly,” if they commit a crime that is public,
scandalous and a danger to the faith. This is standard teaching in moral
theology manuals.

The principle, however, applies only to
fraternal correction. No theologian I know of extends it to rejecting a pope’s
universal disciplinary laws or teachings of his universal ordinary magisterium.[20]
The theologian Suarez, in fact, says that neither Gal 2:11-14 nor Mt 18:17[21]
allow “fraternal correction” of a pope through public denunciation of his
crime.[22]

(2) Resistance
to a Pope “Destroying the Church.”R&R-ers often cite quotes
from 15th- and 16th-century theologians that say it is
permissible to “resist” a true pope who does such things as attack souls by bad
example, encourage sacrileges, appoint unworthy men to or sell church offices,
wage unjust wars, inflict spiritual violence, order evil things, profane holy
things, “destroy the Church,” etc. From these R&R-ers conclude that “under
extraordinary circumstances, a Catholic can have not simply the right but the
duty to disobey the Pope.”[23] However:

• These passages justify nothing more than
disobeying a pope’s evil commands(“Sell Fatima to Disney, Monsignor, dynamite St.
Peter’s and then bring me another blonde chorus girl…”), but NOT
resisting his universal laws[24] (which are infallible) and the universal ordinary magisterium of pope and bishops (also infallible).

• Because the R&R-ers have not examined the
context of their “proof-texts,” they mistakenly conclude that the authors were
approving “resistance” to a pope by individual Catholics.

But in fact the quotes were part of the
Catholic argument against the theories of the conciliarist theologian Gerson
(1363-1429)[25]
regarding how much a general or provincial council of bishops ora
Catholic king could either “correct” or “resist” a morally evil
pope —one who, like some Renaissance popes, sold ecclesiastical offices,
appointed unworthy office-holders, irresponsibly granted dispensations, and
thus “manifestly destroyed the Church.”[26]

So as regards each quote, either the title
of the work in which it appeared, its general context, or the question that
preceded it clearly indicates that Cajetan,[27] Vitoria,[28]
Bellarmine[29] and
Suarez[30]
were supporting resistance to evil popes by councils, not individuals.
(See footnotes.)

A theological commentary on Vitoria confirms this: “…when a pope by arbitrary dispensations manifestly destroys the
Church, not private persons, but the
bishops, in council or by
mutual agreement may resist accepting or implementing them…Distinguished
authors and firm defenders of papal authority such as Cajetan likewise upheld
this teaching.”[31]

Vitoria himself puts the final nail into the
coffin for the R&R “resistance” quotes:

“Proposition 23: ‘It would not seem permitted for any private person on
his own authority to resist and not obey the Pope’s directives, however much these would contradict a Council’s
decision.’ This is correct. For it
would be a great act of irreverence and near-contempt for supreme authority if anyone were allowed to act towards a Pope in a
way that would not be permitted towards a bishop, whose directive (however
unjust) one may not disobey on private authority.”[32]

*****

Since the authority of the Church cannot
give evil or error, and since individual Catholics may not “resist” a true
pope, R&R-ers face three possible conclusions:

(1) The New Mass and Vatican II teachings are Catholic. (Stop resisting, check out that Saturday Novus Ordo at St.
Teilhard’s, homeschool your son Marcel with that new Catechism, and sign up
little Philomena for altar girls.)

(2) The authority of the Catholic Churchhas defected. (Go
Episcopalian — great music, no confession!)

(3) The New Mass and the Vatican II
teachings are not Catholic, and so could
not have come from the authority of the Church. (Welcome to…

II. SEDEVACANTISM.

The evils and errors most traditionalists
acknowledge, in other words, are solid evidence that the lawgivers lost their
authority. Sedevacantism merely tries to explain how.

Here, Catholic theology and canon law tell
us that while the Church herself cannot defect from the faith, an individual member
who holds Church office can. If he defects publicly, he automatically
loses his office (authority).[33]

This principle applies even to a pope. Since
the 16th century nearly all canonists and theologians who have
addressed the issue teach that a pope who becomes a manifest (public) heretic
“would, by divine law, fall from office without any sentence.”[34]

Here is how this applies to the post-Vatican
II popes:

A. HERESY DEFINED.

A heretic is “one who, after the reception
of baptism pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths to believed by
divine and Catholic faith.”[35]

The canonist Michel warns that one must
clearly distinguish three problems:

Here we need only discuss points (1) and
(2), false doctrine and sin, because a pope’s public sin of heresy — the
offense against God’s law — strips him of Christ’s authority.[37]
Point (3) does not apply, because as supreme legislator a pope cannot commit an
ecclesiastical crime (delictum) against canon law.

This is a key distinction, because
anti-sedevacantist tracts like those of Michael Davies[38]
routinely misapply to the sin of heresy criteria that pertain only to
heresy as an ecclesiastical crime — much as if one insisted that a sin
of murder could not exist without meeting state criminal law’s criteria for the
crime of murder.

(1) Doctrine Denied.
The teaching must be an article “of divine and Catholic faith” that the Church
has authentically proposed as such.

A prior ex cathedra or conciliar
definition is not required. “The explicit teaching of the universal ordinary
magisterium suffices for a truth to be authentically proposed for adherence by
the faithful.”[39]

The heretic may deny the doctrine “in
explicit or equivalent terms,”[40]
through either a contradictory or a contrary proposition.[41]

(2) Sin/Pertinacity.
“Because the act of heresy is an erroneous judgment of intelligence,” says
Michel, “to commit the sin of heresy it suffices to knowingly and willingly
express this erroneous judgment in opposition to the Church’s magisterium. From the moment that one sufficiently knows the
existence of the rule of the faith in the Church and that, on any point
whatsoever, for whatever motive and in whatever form, one refuses to submit to
it, formal heresy is complete.

“This willed opposition to the Church’s
magisterium constitutes the pertinacity authors require for the sin of
heresy. With Cajetan we must observe that pertinacity does not of necessity include long obstinacy by the heretic
and warnings from the Church. A
condition forthe sinof heresy is one thing; a condition for the canonical crime of heresy, punishable by canon laws, is another.”[42]

This torpedoes the oft-heard R&R
argument that a trial or canonical warnings would be required before one could
conclude that a pope was pertinacious in heresy.

These two points I will apply to the Vatican
II ecumenical super-church heresy that I call…

B. “FRANKENCHURCH”

This heresy posits a “People of God” and a
“Church of Christ” not identical with the Roman Catholic Church and broader
than it — a Frankenchurch created from “elements” of the true Church that are
possessed either “fully” (by Catholics) or “partially” (by heretics and schismatics).

Though earlier experiments had failed,[43]
Vatican II’s teaching that Christ’s Church “subsists” in the Catholic Church[44]
was the lightning strike to the monster’s neck-bolt. The stitching holding the
ugly beast together was the modernist/ecumenical theology of Church as
“communion” (which may be full or partial).

Ratzinger — Doktor von Frankenchurch — fully
developed the latter in the 1992 CDF Letter on “Communion,” the 2000
Declaration Dominus Jesus and other JP2-approved statements. Here are
some typical propositions:

• Schismatic bodies are “particular
Churches” united to the Catholic Church by “close bonds.”[45]

• The Church of Christ “is present and
operative” in churches that reject the papacy.[46]

• The universal Church is the “body of
the [particular] Churches.”[47]

• There exist “numerous ‘spheres’ of
belonging to the Church as People of God and of the bond which exists with it.”[48]

• The “universal Church becomes present
in them [the particular Churches] with all her essential elements.”[50]

• “Elements of this already-given Church
exist, found in their fullness in the Catholic Church, and without this
fullness, in the other communities.”[51]

There’s no escape from Frankenchurch. It is
a fundamental principle in 1983 Code of Canon Law,[52]
and it lumbers through the new Catechism[53] to
menace your son Marcel, who will learn:

• One becomes a member of the “People of
God” by baptism. (#782)

• This whole People of God participates
in the offices of Christ (priest, prophet, king). (783) (“Does that mean even Lutherans,
Dad?” “Uh…”)

• The sole Church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic Church. (816)

• Christ’s body, the Church, is
“wounded.” (817)

• Christ’s Spirit uses schismatic and
heretical bodies (“these Churches and ecclesial communities”) as “means of
salvation.” (819) (“Then why do we drive an hour to a Latin Mass, Mom?”
“Er, your Dad will explain this when you’re more grown up…”)

• Catholics are “fully” incorporated into
the Church; those who believe in Christ and are baptized are in a “certain,
although imperfect communion with the Catholic Church,” and this communion with
schismatic orthodox Churches is “so profound” that it “lacks little to attain
the fullness.” (837-8)

• Each “particular Church” is “Catholic,”
but some are “fully Catholic.” (832, 834) (“So a C+ ‘mark of the Church’ is
still passing, Dad?” “Um, let’s ask the priest on Sunday…”)

(1) What Frankenchurch Denies.
Through contrary propositions, it denies an article of divine and Catholic
faith: “I believe in one Church.”[54]

The Church’s universal ordinary magisterium,
speaking through pope after pope and theologian after theologian, has
repeatedly explained exactly what this unity means: “The property of the
Church by which, in the profession of faith, in governance and in worship, she
is undivided in herself and separated
from any other.”[55]

“The practice of the Church,” said Leo XIII, “has always
been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were
wont to hold as outside
Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point
of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium.”[56]

Instead, Frankenchurch overthrows the
Church’s divine constitution and gives us a monster — divided in faith,
governance and worship, but held together by degrees of full or partial
communion (tight or loose stitches?). Frankenchurch teaches that:

(a) Schismatic and/or heretical churches are
part of Christ’s Church.

(b) One can be part of Christ’s Church
without submission to the Roman Pontiff.

(c) The one, holy, catholic, apostolic
Church becomes present in every valid celebration of the Eucharist.

• Pius IX, Jam Vos Omnes, 13 Sep
1868: “No non-Catholic sect or “all of them together in any way constitute or
are that one Catholic Church which Our Lord founded and established and which
He willed to create.”

• Leo XIII, Officio Sanctissimo,
22 Dec 1887: He who separates from the Pope “has no further bond with Christ.”

• Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, 29 Jun
1896: “Jesus Christ did not …institute a Church to embrace several communities
similar in nature, but in themselves distinct, and lacking those bonds which
render the Church unique and indivisible after that manner in which in the
symbol of our faith we profess: ‘I believe in one Church.”

• Leo XIII, ibid. The Church
regarded as rebels and outside her “all who held beliefs on any point of
doctrine different from her own.”

• Pius IX, Mortalium Animos, 6 Jan
1928: No one is in Christ’s Church or remains there unless he acknowledges
obeys the Pope.

• Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 29
Jun 1943: They stray from divine truth “who imagine the Church to be something
which can neither be touched nor seen, that it is something merely ‘spiritual,’
as they say, in which many Christian communities, although separated from one
another by faith, could be joined by some kind of invisible link.”

Such quotes are the tip of the iceberg.[57]
For further proof, I invite readers to study the 3-column comparison chart now
posted on www.traditionalmass.org. Judge for yourself whether Frankenchurch is
contrary to the universal ordinary magisterium — and thus heresy.

(2) Sin/Pertinacity
& the Post-Conciliar Popes. Recall
the canonist Michel’s teaching: the sin of heresy requires no
canonical warnings for pertinacity. All one need do is (a) know the rule of
faith, and (b) refuse to submit to it. Formal heresy is then complete — because
the willed opposition to the magisterium constitutes pertinacity.

Cardinal Billot put it still more simply:
“Formal heretics are those to whom the authority of the Church is sufficiently
known.”[58]

The post-Conciliar popes were former
academic theologians, seminary professors, cardinal-archbishops and curialists.
Do you really think such men did not“know
the rule of faith in the Church”? Did notknow that unam ecclesiam in the Creed meant the Church was “undivided in herself and separate
from any other”?

Or do you really think that
Professor-Doktor-Doktor-theologian-peritus-cardinal-CDF-Prefect-superbrain
Joseph Ratzinger did not know that the universal ordinary magisterium —
Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, countless other popes, the Church Fathers
and the whole edifice of Catholic theology — taught that all who rejected even one
point of the Church’s doctrine were outside her communion and alien to her?
That Ratzinger did notknow
that Frankenchurch overthrew the previous teaching?

If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell
you — over the Tiber.

(3) Who
Decides This? The answer is
simple: The same people who “decided” that the New Mass was evil and that the
Vatican II teachings were non-Catholic — you and me, folks. We didn’t need a
General Council to figure out those issues and we don’t need a General
Council for this one either.

After all, do we traditional Catholics await
a jury verdict before we decide that the local abortionist is a murderer? He
openly violates a Commandment. He commits the sin of murder, and we
don’t hesitate to say so — even though no court has convicted him.

So too, the public heretic. He aborts an
article of the Creed to create a monster. He openly denies the rule of faith.
He commits the sin of heresy.

We traditionalists need not hesitate to call
a heretic a heretic — even though no Council has convicted him — any more than
we hesitate to call an abortionist a murderer.

Nor should traditionalists hesitate to point
out the consequences: A public heretic cannot be a true pope. He deposes himself.

*****

SEDEVACANTISM is the only
logical conclusion that follows from the initial judgment every traditionalist
makes — that the New Mass is evil and the new doctrines are errors. Evil and
error can come only from non-Catholics — not true Successors of Peter who
possess authority from Jesus Christ.

All traditionalists, therefore, are really
sedevacantists — it’s just that they haven’t all figured it out yet.

[The Remnant,
November 2005]

[1]. In his 30 Sept 2005
installment, for instance, Mr. Ferrara cites Salaverri, Sacrae Theologiae
Summa, BAC Vol. I, p. 698, for a quote to support his contention that a
council must declare a pope to be a heretic. I checked the 1955 and 1962
editions, but could not verify the quote. In the same installment, Mr. Ferrara
claims (p.18) that “the 1917 and 1983 codes of canon law provide that no one
may insist that an ecclesiastical office has been lost due to heresy unless
this has been established by a competent authority.” Here Mr. Ferrara cites the
1983 Code, Can. 194, §§1, 2. But consulting the “Table of Corresponding
Canons,” in James A. Corriden, ed., The Code of Canon Law: A Text and
Commentary (New York: Paulist 1985), 1049, reveals that paragraph 2 (which
requires a declaration from competent authority) had no corresponding equivalentin the 1917 Code. Canon 188, in
fact, provided that the loss of office following public defection from the
faith occurred “automatically and without any declaration.”

[2]. Remnant (15 Nov 2005):
“The New Mass, as promulgated in its Latin typical edition, is not per se
‘evil’ universal legislation.”

[3]. In P. Vere, “Sedevacantists at
the Gates?” Wanderer (6 Oct 2005), 6, Mr. Ferrara states: “Vatican II
presented no new doctrine [so] it could hardly have presented false
doctrine. What traditionalists really oppose is not doctrine as such, but
ambiguities capable of heterodox interpretation…In short, traditionalists
oppose non-doctrinal novelties masquerading as doctrine.” This is a new
insight: Vatican II as Doctrinal Masquerade Party. My guess is that Ratzinger
came dressed as Dr. Frankenstein. (See below.)

[5]. On this point — the absence of
authority on the part of the post-Vatican II popes — there is no difference
between garden-variety sedevacantists (yours truly) and those who adhere to
Mgr. Guérard des Lauriers’ Thesis of Cassiciacum.

[6]. Traditionalists,
Infallibility and the Pope (Cincinnati & West Chester OH: St. Gertrude
the Great 1995), 6-8, 28-33.

[9]. This is not to say that some
haven’t tried. Several years ago in The Remnant (April-August 1997, passim)
SSPX argued that the New Mass was evil but invalidlypromulgated, while Michael Davies
argued that it was validly promulgated, but not evil. Both were whistling past the
sedevacantist graveyard.I
subsequently demonstrated that the promulgation of the Novus Ordo followed
all the canonically required forms and procedures for a universal law. See “Did
Paul VI Illegally Promulgate the New Mass: Canon Law and a Popular Traditionalist
Myth” (Cincinnati: 2002), www.traditionalmass.org. If invited, I would gladly
return to The Remnant to argue the proposition that the New Mass (even
in Latin) is evil.

[11]. Vatican Council I, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Faith (1870), DZ 1792. “Further, by divine and Catholic
faith, all those things must be believed which are contained in the written
word of God and in tradition, and those which are proposed by the Church,
either in a solemn pronouncement or in her ordinary and universal magisterium to be believed as divinely
revealed.” See also Canon 1323.1.

[14]. Pius IX, Tuas Libenter (1863),
DZ 1684. “… it is
not sufficient for learned Catholics to accept and revere the aforesaid dogmas
of the Church, but […] it is also necessary to subject themselves to the decisions pertaining to
doctrine which are issued by the Pontifical Congregations.”

[17]. For example, Michael Davies, Pope
Paul’s New Mass (Dickinson TX: Angelus 1980) 589ff; Atila Guimaraes et al.,
We Resist You to the Face (Los Angeles: TIA 2000), 56ff, etc. The quotes
seem to have first been circulated in an appendix to Arnaldo Xavier da
Silveira’s Consideracoes sobre o Ordo Missae de Paulo VI (Sao Paulo:
1970). It was in one of his early works in Portuguese that I first saw brought
together the writings of various theologians on the issue of a heretical pope —
for me a rather astounding discovery. Mr. da Silveira was one of the founders
of TFP.

[22]. De Immunitate Ecclesiastica
4:6.12, in Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès 1859) 24:381. “I therefore respond to the
objection that fraternal correction to the Supreme Pontiff is fitting, insofar
as it is a duty of charity, and as such it is proven that this may take place
as someone greater by someone lesser, and as a Prelate is corrected by his
subject, as Paul acted towards Peter… Thus the Pontiff may be respectfully
corrected and admonished, first alone, if his crime be secret, and then before
a few others, if the matter and necessity require it. But what follows, ‘tell
the church,’ has no place here, because the term ‘Church’ means not the body of
the Church, but [an offender’s] Prelate.… Because the pope has no superior
Prelate, such a denunciation has no place in his case. Rather since he himself
is the Pastor of the whole Church, the Church is sufficiently ‘told’ of his sin
when it is told to the Pope himself.”

[24]. A law is general and stable. A
command is particular or transitory. i.e., it has a limited object (do this or
that now) or binds only a certain number of persons. See: R. Naz, “Précepte,” Dictionnaire
de Droit Canonque (Paris: Letouzey 1935-65) 7:116-17.

[25]. See L. Salembier, “Gerson, Jean
Charlier de,” in DTC 6:1312-22. Conciliarism taught that a pope was subject to
a general council. Gerson was a favorite of 16th-century Protestants.

[27]. Note the title: The
Authority of the Pope and a Council Compared. The most-frequently quoted
R&R passage (“resisting a tyrant is an act of virtue…a pope publicly
destroying the Church must be resisted,” etc.) appears in chapter 27, and is
immediately followed by: “Many are the ways by which, without rebellion, secular princes and prelates of the
Church,
if they wish to use them, may offer resistance and an obstacle to an abuse of power.” See De Comparatione
Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, (Rome: Angelicum 1936), 411-12.

[28]. Note the title: The Power of
a Pope and a Council. The R&R passage (“A pope must be resisted who
publicly destroys the Church… he should not be obeyed… one would be obliged to
resist… it is licit to resist him,” etc.) is a response to question 23: “Once a
Council has made such a declaration and decree, if a Pope were to command the
contrary, would it
be permissible for bishops or a provincial Council to resist such a command on their own, or
even petition princes to resist the Supreme Pontiff by their power, thus
preventing the execution of his commands?” De Potestate Papae et Concilii 23, in Obras de
Francisco de Vitoria: Relecciones Teologicas (Madrid: BAC 1960) 486. Vitoria incorporates into his response the above-quoted
R&R passage from chapter 27 of Cajetan’s work.

[29]. The R&R passage (“…it is
licit to resist [a Pope] who attacks souls… or above all, tries to destroy the
Church… It is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding
the execution of his will…”) is a response to Objection 7:“Any person
is permitted to kill the pope if he is unjustly at­tacked by him. Therefore,
even more so is it permitted for kings or a council to depose the pope if he disturbs the state, or
if he tries to kill souls by his bad example.” De Romano Pontifice II.29 in De
Controversiis Christiani Fidei (Naples; Giuliano 1836) 1:417-18. All nine arguments in chapter 29
are over whether a pope is subject to a king or a council. In his response to
Objection 7 Bellarmine likewise cites the above-quoted R&R passage from
chapter 27 of Cajetan’s work. See also: Cekada, “The Bellarmine Resistance
Quote: Another Traditionalist Myth,” SGG Newsletter (October 2004),
www.traditionalmass.org

[30]. Note the title: Ecclesiastical
Immunity Violated by Venice. For the R&R passage (“If [a Pope’s]
violence would be spiritual, ordering [n.b., not legislating/teaching]
evil things, or profaning or destroying sacred things, he may be resisted in a
proportionate way”), Suarez likewise cites for his authority Chapter 27 of
Cajetan (“secular
princes and prelates of the Church…may likewise offer resistance), and even uses some
identical language. De Immunitate Ecclesiastica 4:6.17-18 in Opera Omnia 24:383.

[33]. Canon 188.4. “By tacit
resignation through the operation of law, all offices become vacant
automatically [ipso facto] and without any declaration if a cleric… (4)
publicly defects from the Catholic faith.”

[34]. M. Conte a Coronata, Institutiones
Juris Canonici (Rome: Marietti 1950) 1:316. My pamphlet Traditionalists,
Infallibility and the Pope contains many similar quotes. For a free copy,
contact: office@sgg.org. Canonists and theologians use the terms “manifest,”
“notorious” or “public” heretic to distinguish a pope who professes a heresy
publicly from one who adheres to it privately (an “occult” heretic). The
latter, according to the common teaching, do not lose office.

[37]. L. Billot, De Ecclesia
Christi (Rome: Gregorian 1927) 1:632. “He would automatically lose pontifical
power, because, having become an unbeliever [factus infidelis], he put
himself outside of the Church by his own will.”

[43]. The initiatives of Lambert
Beauduin (1920s) and Henri de Lubac (1940s) were condemned by Pius XI and Pius
XII, respectively. Since John Paul II would later make the modernist de Lubac a
cardinal, torch-bearing villagers with pitchforks wouldn’t have been a bad idea
either.

[52]. See Canons 204-5, and the lengthy
commentary on the Code’s “communion” theology in J. Beal et al., New
Commentary of the Code of Canon Law (New York: Paulist 2000), 245-8, and passim.
All the baptized are “incorporated” into and “constituted as” the “People of
God.”

[54]. Salaverri, 1:1153. “Articulus
Fidei divinae et Catholicae.” Frankenchurch is also contrary to “outside the
Church, there is no salvation,” which is a “dogma of the faith.” Salaverri 1:1095. See
also Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (10 August 1863) DZ 1677.
“notissimum catholicum dogma.”

[56]. Satis Cognitum 29 June
1896. In Enchiridione
delle Encicliche 3:1251. The “unanimous teaching of the Fathers” is
likewise proof that a doctrine is part of the universal ordinary magisterium
(Salaverri 1:814 ff).

[57]. See D. Sanborn, “The New
Ecclesiology: An Overview and Documentation,” Catholic Restoration,
(Sept-Oct 2004), www.traditionalmass.org
for an excellent survey.

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